EU unveils sweeping climate change plan:
The European Union has announced a raft of climate change proposals aimed at pushing it towards its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
A dozen draft proposals, which still need to be approved by the bloc's 27 member states and the EU parliament, were announced on Wednesday.
They include plans to tax jet fuel and effectively ban the sale of petrol and diesel powered cars within 20 years.
The proposals, however, could face years of negotiations.
The plans triggered serious infighting at the European Commission, the bloc's administrative arm, as the final tweaks were being made, sources told the AFP news agency.
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EU Unveils Sweeping Climate Change Plan
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(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @12:36PM (7 children)
Missing data: it will allow EU to place CO2 tariffs on imports into EU, like from China or US, that accounts for the waste they emit that is embedded in these products. This allows the local companies to play on a level playing field while developing a CO2-neutral production process. In the long run, EU will be ahead of the rest of the world.
This is exactly what US should have enacted a decade ago except that they were not interesting in CO2 neutral economy. The bitching that "China pollutes more and will not reduce" was just fake excuses pushed by the elites that want to maintain the status-quo of making money from pollution.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:23PM (6 children)
It is more likely that non EU countries would see that as a stealth tax/tariff, and consequently complain to the WTO and/or impose their own tariffs against EU goods to keep a level playing field in their own markets. Coupled with mutual sanctions and general demonisation.
What we are seeing is a fragmentation of the world into alliances/blocks, with little cross block communication or trade.
To be honest, it reminds me a bit too much of the period in Europe just before WWI kicked off.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:49PM (4 children)
Not to be pedantic, but when was the world ever united? It's always been divided - either into small competing/warring countries, or into large competing/warring blocks.
What we are seeing is more of the same. It's nothing new and it's unlikely to change in time to avoid the climate disaster.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday July 18 2021, @03:35PM (3 children)
After WWII was the closest, with the formation of the UN, Nuremberg laws and a pledge to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations. I admit it didn't last long, first splitting into two power blocks with the cold war and some kind of overarching stability due to the fear of MAD. Then from 1990s it has all been unraveling, and once the USA became the sole superpower, up until recently it could do what it wished, and things like territorial integrity and sovereignty went out the window.
However throughout that time there was at least co-operation and a level of mutual respect between the big powers. Globalisation pushed the powers to become interdependent on each other economically, resulting in a joint interest in keeping things stable. However that seems to be going out the window, and the blocks are isolating themselves to break dependence on one another.
It is hard to fight a war against your trade partners, hence why the first step prior to any major conflict is isolationism and self sufficiency, to make sure you can survive solely on the resources you control. That is what the big powers did just prior to WWI, hence my comparison.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 18 2021, @04:37PM
During WW2 was the closest: it was Germany and their buddies against everyone else. After WW2, it was the US and their buddies against the USSR and their slaves, and nonaligned countries - aka the original third world.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @06:09PM
Uh-huh. It's all the U.S. fault, it had absolutely nothing to do with the EU's unelected Jewish Bureaucrats destroying your culture and livelihoods by mass-importing third-world filth and then locking you all down in a sadistic display prompted by a bullshit pandemic. There are massive and daily protests against all this nonsense, but the Jew-run media chooses to ignore it.
Global Jewry and its entrenchment is the problem. You all are just either Jewish or otherwise too chickenshit to admit it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @10:14AM
If by Globalisation you mean China specifically since 1990s, then yes. Otherwise things don't follow. Nothing else really changed. It's not like we are moving clothing factories out of Bangladesh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @06:42PM
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Sunday July 18 2021, @12:43PM (19 children)
Apparently, the tax on aviation fuel exempts private jets. If the rest of the proposals contain similar exemptions, then this is a pile of hypocrisy. Typical of the EU Commission.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @12:59PM (5 children)
There's logic to it: if St. Greta has to pay aviation fuel tax every time she flies to conferences in a private jet, she won't be able to afford to save the planet.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @01:04PM
So remove the exemption for private jets, but allow people to buy credits from Al Gore to fund St. Greta's travels.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 18 2021, @01:53PM (2 children)
I thought she went by sailing boat?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday July 18 2021, @04:19PM (1 child)
She flew to the boat.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @10:24AM
At least get the facts right. *She* didn't fly to the boat. The crew that sailed it back did. I mean how lazy is it not to check these facts? Or they no longer matter, just what you feel aught to be the right talking point?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_Greta_Thunberg [wikipedia.org]
But whatever. The weirdo world is now inventing weird image of Greta like they did of Bill Gates because he dared what? Supports extermination of polio and measles? Did the elites with deep pockets in private hospitals lose their 1% from treating children paralysis and so they want to throw mud on Gates? Right wingnuts are the useful idiots here. Reality? What reality?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @05:48PM
If they ever tax hot air you're in trouble.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 18 2021, @01:54PM (8 children)
Yes, it seems a bit unfair, but what percentage of emissions come from private jets? Is it a big deal?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:32PM (6 children)
> Yes, it seems a bit unfair, but what percentage of emissions come from private jets? Is it a big deal?
Same can be said for high end sports cars (Ferrari, etc...). They are rarely driven, don't do many miles, and as a consequence don't contribute much to CO2 output.
Same thing for private yachts. Many spend most of the year moored somewhere, or in dry dock, so don't produce that much CO2.
By your logic, we can exempt all of the above. What that does result in is a return to the feudal society. A "nobility" in all but name, able to enjoy jetting around the world, their cars, yachts and other luxuries, while the masses are forced and taxed into some peasant like existence.
Which is pretty much what the EU has been trying to do since its creation, so it is not exactly surprising, however it should not be something that should be quietly accepted, let alone justified.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:41PM (3 children)
It does seem like a very strange omission from the law.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:46PM (2 children)
That is because the other stuff is already exempt :-)
This law change would introduce taxes where there were none, so they had to add an exemption. Not sure why they did it in such a ham-fisted way. Normally they are more subtle about keeping their privileges. Not sure if this was just a lack of diplomatic skill, or they feel that they are strong enough to pull it off brazenly and nobody will be able to do much about it.
Possibly this is a distraction, to draw attention to this exemption while allowing the "proper" exemptions to be passed. This exemption might be "given up" publicly later on, satiating the protests but allowing them what they wanted anyway.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @03:47PM (1 child)
"Ham-fisted" loses meaning in a society that increasingly see things in black and white. Increasingly in our society people and ideas are being clumped into false dichotomies - you are with us, or you are against us. The notion that somebody can support an idea, yet not support things claimed to be motivated by an effort to further that idea, is a notion increasingly lost on our society.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Sunday July 18 2021, @05:44PM
Hmm, I was going to respond with saying the "Black and White" society is a typically USA thing, where very much the idea of compromise is unheard of. Unfortunately it does seem to have been expanding beyond the USA to the English speaking world, so even the UK is having a similar attitude now. It does not bode well for a stable and peaceful society, because by its very nature, a society without compromise and tolerance of others must be authoritarian in order to suppress those others. You end up with two sides locked in a power struggle over who gets to control the machinery of state to suppress the other.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday July 18 2021, @09:18PM (1 child)
>some peasant like existence.
My knowledge of peasant history is limited, but AFAIK few if any had electric cars :-)
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday July 19 2021, @04:12PM
It's all relative, but as an example: peasants had restricted mobility.
Indeed most of humanity for most of history rarely were able to venture further than the next few villages from theirs. Back in the day only the nobility could afford a "Grand tour" of Europe, or to spend Summer down on the French Riviera or Italian lakes. Now millions of people do the same trip each summer, be it by train, car or plane.
The ability for Joe average to hop on a plane and fly half way around the world is a recent phenomenon. Something that (according to the powers that be) is unsustainable, so it must be curtailed for the masses, with exemptions only for themselves and the rich.
Electric cars are a good example, as they are almost in every way an inferior technology to what they are replacing. Their long recharge times and limited range make them far less flexible than ICE vehicles, thereby limiting the range a person can travel per unit time. They are more similar to horses than cars, where a horse could only travel a certain distance a day, and then would need many hours to feed and rest before you could resume, and whose range decreased with age (like a BEV's range decreases with battery age). While the ICE car was a fundamental step forward from the horse, the BEV is a step back to those times.
Sure, there is promise of magic energy storage capacity with sub 5 minute recharge time, 500 mile ranges and no capacity reduction with age, but until I actually see something concrete in production and available for purchase for the masses, I can't consider them.
COVID restrictions have also put a major dent in travel, but unless they find a way to permanently make international travel expensive and time consuming, that may return to normal. However I think their goal is to make it expensive enough to severely restrict international travel to the rich, and those who have to travel. I guess it would be somewhat a return to the "Jet-set" age of the 50's and 60's.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @06:45PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @04:17PM (3 children)
This is a sumptuary law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law [wikipedia.org]
The whole point of being a noble is to have & do things forbidden to commoners. Now the rich and powerful feel safe enough to openly write it into laws again.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday July 18 2021, @05:58PM (1 child)
Hmm, I never considered it that way, very interesting. It could be that "Carbon emissions" will the new demarcation of peasant vs nobility. The nobles can enjoy a life similar to what they currently do, while the rest of us must accept a large drop in standard of living in order to meet whatever "carbon emissions targets" they decide to set for us. Things like restricted mobility, restricted energy usage, etc....
When you think about it, from the 1960's to present day never in the history of humanity have so many of us been able to afford what can be considered "high luxuries". The idea of jetting off to foreign lands once a year for summer holidays, then again for winter holidays, having multiple cars with large engines, large houses with AC, pools, etc... All things that consume a lot of energy per capita. Something that was reserved only for the richest once upon a time (even cars were once a luxury only for the well heeled). I guess those in power will push hard to reverse these gains from the masses.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @10:48AM
Does everything in the world revolve around conspiracies for you? Seriously, WTF is the matter with your brain? You think the rich have some sort of penis envy of you being able to fly in economy to the next state? Did they have same penis envy when it was buses or cars instead?
Everything has become some weird ass conspiracy to you. Maybe try to learn there are actually problems that are caused when 7 billion people try to poop in a single lake. Maybe it works just fine with 1000, but not so well with 7,000,000,000. Ever thought that the Earth is a FINITE planet? That your live in a completely different environment from the ones of your grandparents? That we are literally heading for a shitstorm of our own making? And all you can come up with is a poor, shitty conspiracy about fucking PENIS ENVY!
You want facts?? Can you handle facts?
1. The rich own the companies that sell you services - like airlines, pool installers and construction companies. They make money when then you manage to squeeze your fat ass into economy. They make much more if you manage to upgrade yourself to wider seats.
2. The rich DO NOT like Carbon Taxes and the like - it causes uncertainty in their business regarding next month cash flow, you know, to them.
3. If you cannot afford something, the rich actually lose money.
4. The world is changing because we are using the air as a toilet.
5. CO2 is a pollutant - https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/mlo.html [noaa.gov]
Fertilizer is not a pollutant until it ends up in your drinking water and causes dead zones in the lakes and oceans that keep increasing. CO2 is the same. I was born when CO2 was 330ppm. Now it's almost 420. Remember when it made the news that it's over 400?
6. It's a big fucking problem.
You want real conspiracies? Oh wait, probably can't handle them so better invent Pizza-gate.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/01/edward-snowdon-conspiracy-theories-belief-powerlessness [theguardian.com]
This is exactly why you invent the bullshit you do. You somehow believe that someone wants to take your "high luxuries".... Reality is, no one wants to take your shit. Even better if you stopped throwing it in the hole in the ground and polluting your grand-kids ground water. Maybe then they will not have to invent a conspiracy why grandpa conspired with the 'elites' to poison my drinking water.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @12:11PM
You will not eat meat, but bugs, and be happy about it, peasant.
Now eat the bugs like a grinning dog!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:07PM (3 children)
i think the legislatur.ah?.kri ... whatever that word is, well the law should say that energy in europe needs to become free. very simple!
wind as source? it's free!
sun as source? it's free!
hydro as source? it's free!
see a trend here? there is GINORMOUS potential of free energy.
the legis.kratu.tum whatever the word, should legally guarantee endless access to free energy!
use MORE energy, not less!
we can see in switzerland how laws where created to make you use less energy! the laws there where NOT modified so the populance can get access to MORE free energy! poor swiss were hoodwinked!
oh well, "save energy" all you want until all you get per year is one AAA battery.
do you NOT SEE?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Sunday July 18 2021, @05:37PM (2 children)
Wind, solar and hydro may be "free" but they are not limitless. Humans tend to demand more and more over time. We always think of new things to do and new ways to use up all the resources we already have. That's why we need nuclear fusion power. That will keep us going a bit longer.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @01:31PM (1 child)
thanks for reply to a shitty original post:
the world we see today is a world build by and geard towards fossile fuels.
our sense of "requirement", " basic needs" and eveb "aesthetics" all originates from a culture that used fossile fuels as primary source.
what i fear is happening is that "someone" (probably a group of people) consider this the pinnacle of human evolution in energy usage. a sistin chapel, so too speak, a work of art and needs to be preserved.
they know or suspect that continues growth of fossile fuel usage is detrimental.
but instead of looking for alternatives, the current situation is considered a "work of art" (or a way of life) that must be preserved. the solution is to dictate a limit on energy consumption; it is arbitrarily believed that non-fossile energy consumption cannot possibly eclipse the current rate of energy consumption from fossile fuel.
thus "the work of art" is declared a historical monument, alternatives are simple discarded because they would maybe require a change in society and culture. just imagine if all altars of fossile fuel consumption (highways) were transformed into areas covered with solarpanels? or picturesque high-society wooden chale(s)t holiday resorts inundated by a massive pumped water storage dam?
the examples are miriad and the rich and influencal are thus what they are because they grew from a society geared for fossile fuel consumption.
thus we need to fear laws that limit our energy consumption only and at the same time, indirectly hamper the full bloom of non fossile fuel energy into a new and better era (with an even prettier sistine chapel and maybe a nice martian concret bunker on the highest mountain in the solar system).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @01:52PM
okay here's the "nutshell" ver.:
we found 10 barrels of energy. today we used up maybe 5 but we found out that the waste from using barrels have to go somewhere (socalled climate change).
so instead of deciding to use the 5 remaining barrels to find and aggresively switch to something else, we decide to limit how to "pollute more controlled", thus limiting growth and declare with the strock of a pen (" the law") that we have finished our "fossile fuel based work of art" and and further usage of remaining barrels is for preservation of this "museum".
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:43PM (8 children)
2050 is already too little too late even if the entire world did this and followed the plan to a tee.
Now, this is just the EU, the proposal will be bogged down in red tape for years, the member states will then have to translate the EU directives in their respective bodies of law for a few more years, then they'll fall behind and everybody will go "Oops, better luck next year" year after year. And they'll fail to convince the biggest polluters on Earth to follow their lead.
I'm not just pessimistic for no good reason: remember the Paris Agreement of 2016? Lots of hope then, lots of people celebrating and congratulating themselves over a ground-breaking agreement - although in reality it was kind of half-assed to begin with, but okay, it was a good effort. What came out of it concretely? Nada. Zilch. It was all a big wet firecracker. When time came to implement it, everybody went "Uuh, that's costly, so... not so much".
Sadly, I don't think climate change is avoidable at this point. It would take an ultra-authoritative world-spanning regime taking drastic measures to stop it at this point, and obviously nobody wants that kind of remedy because it'll kill the patient.
So my opinion is, this is all a bunch of feel-good measures. "Look, we do something for the environment." Surely the people involved in these talks must realize this before even going into the building, or they're all hopelessly naive.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:50PM
>> What came out of it concretely? Nada.
Wrong! Without the Paris Accord, AGW would have resulted in the end of mankind in 2019. With it, we got a few extra years so we could enjoy COVID.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday July 18 2021, @05:39PM
You're right. But it is still possible to mitigate the worst of its effects.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @06:20PM
Global Jewry is working with the Chinese to implement all this touchy-feely bullshit to try to get Western nations to give up their energy independence, soften them up a bit for easy subjugation while making them dependent on cheap Chinese batteries and solar panels and other cheap shit. And as another user pointed out, they get complete fucking passes for hypocrisy with the private Jet-related stuff being exempt of extra taxes.
You don't find it to be coincidental that China and India are never mentioned in these "climate" agreements that list all the modern conveniences that Western nations must give up? Such as well-rounded diets (starve the brains to make them less effective and more malleable), individual homes (destruction of privacy and the family unit), older driver-driven automobiles (freedom of movement), the independence of nuclear power, free speech (criticism of government, questioning of hoax pandemics/lockdowns and the efficacy/hazards of compulsory vaccination)? All in the name of "the environment?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by quietus on Sunday July 18 2021, @06:27PM
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @06:49PM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 18 2021, @09:05PM (1 child)
Of course not. Book learnin' is fer Commies, homosexuals, and Europeans, but I repeat myself. Twice. That is seriously how large chunks of the US think.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @09:15PM
I don't recall my mother warning me about any girls, except a chit-chat about venereal disease and pregnancy. It was a condom-centric kind of talk.
I can only conclude that Azuma has a loudly ticking biological clock and syphilis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @10:56AM
Remember the Kyoto Protocol? I thought it would be like what EU is proposing now, with border tariffs and forcing importers to adjust. Reality, fuck all happened. Oil usage went from 60m barrels per day to 90m.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday July 18 2021, @11:08PM (1 child)
Gasoline prices are expected to rise by at least 50% as a result. For you Americans, that amounts to $13.40 per gallon. Ordinary citizens can't afford an electric car, so they will be screwed deeply.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @12:16PM
Stupid Euro. If gasoline prices were to rise for Americans by 50%, that would put us at a bit over $4.50 a gallon in most states, or about $1.20 per liter.